2018.05.21

Action: internet freedom, bank regulation, and cable fees.

As you know, the Senate passed S.J.Res. 52, which aims to nullify the FCC's recent net neutrality repeal, by a 52-47 margin, but in the House -- whose leadership has not scheduled a vote either on S.J.Res. 52 or its House companion bill, H.J.Res. 129 -- the task of even getting a vote will be harder: we would have to get more than half of the sitting House members to sign a discharge petition on the resolution, which would then force a vote on the resolution itself. The House has 193 Democrats, whom we presume would favor S.J.Res. 52/H.J.Res. 129, but you need 218 signatures on a "discharge petition" to force a vote, so we have our work cut out for us. Both the Electronic Freedom Foundation and Progress America help you tell your House Reps to support internet freedom by rolling back the FCC's anti-net neutrality rules. Only then will we be able to protect ourselves from corporations blocking and throttling websites and telling us where we can and can't go on the internet.

Finally, Consumer Reports helps you tell your cable providing corporation to cut it out with all the absurd-sounding fees and just give you one up-front price. If that sounds a bit Quixotic, then consider how miserably unpopular your cable corporation actually is, and thus also consider how little your miserably unpopular cable corporation can afford any more bad PR, particularly about something that everyone hates. Seriously, a lot of good Americans find issues like media consolidation and net neutrality a bit esoteric on the face of it, and I don't blame them, but good Americans generally don't need to have the BS quotient of "broadcast TV fees" or "regional sports fees" explained to them. And yet the latest Consumer Reports email missive does explain the problem in an amusing way, by asking you to contemplate buying a box of cereal at the supermarket and suddenly getting slammed with "cardboard box fees" or "grain refinery surcharges." Hey, I share because I care.

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